Bricks Not Books

Merlin's_Beard

Conratulations VH, glad the surgery went well and you and Baby Boy are home and healthy.

Suffolksue

Congratulations from a lurker !

Fortune_Smiles

What fabulous news VH!  Congratulations to you all and happy birthday to Baby Boy 🎈

Fortune x

Moneyfordreams

Fantastic news - huge congratulations to you

VintageHistorian

Popping on quickly with a liitle mortgage OP update:

March - £135.52
April - £128.70
May - £130.99

Most of this is our standard OPs, plus the occasional TT when I remember.

Things are going very well with Baby Boy. He's currently sleeping on me as I write this. He's a lovely baby, very cute, and relatively easy all things considered! I've healed up from the c-section, can now drive again, and I'm getting used to driving to places, taking out the pram, and then putting it back in the boot once we're done.

Baby Boy has got a junior S&S ISA registered in his name. Didn't really need it from a tax perspective as me and Mr VH are nowhere near being higher rate taxpayers, but I'm hoping the returns will be better than a standard savings account. It's been started off with some money from me and Mr VH and my in-laws, and I'll be paying the child benefit into it too. Hopefully by the time Baby Boy is 18 he'll have a nice little nest egg that can be used to help cover living costs at university, or we can advise him to keep it as the basis of a house deposit. Fingers crossed he won't just go and spend it all down the pub!

I'm now also off the blood thinners, so a bunch of sharps boxes are being picked up soon. I need to start getting more stoage boxes for bits and pieces, including the clothes Baby Boy has already grown out of, so they can be packed away.

And now I must risk putting him down so I can get a drink. Have a great week everyone!

ruby_eskimo

So lovely to hear that things are going well with Baby Boy and you're already setting him on the path to being a little MSE'r in the future.  

selloptape

Congrats on Baby Historian! How lovely

VintageHistorian

Thank you @selloptape! And this has prompted me to come back on here for another multi-month update XD

To start with, the OPs:
June - £127.48 (given that our standard is £124 a month, you can see that I didn't pay much attention to my account!)
July - £134.69
August - £143.32 (this includes around £15 of little cashback bits from the likes of Shopmium that just sat in my Paypal account for months).

I did some calculations the other day and realised that if I just did the standard £124 a month for the rest of the year then that would be a nice £1600 by December. Which is £400 off £2000. Which is £100 a month, or £25 a week.

Can I really find the time to make an extra £25 a week at the moment? I'm not really sure. Baby Boy naps pretty well but I still need to pump milk, wash up bottles and make food and eat it, as well as pop to parents, see in-laws, attend a baby yoga class (starts up later in the month), and sort out other bits throughout the week. I might be biting off more than I can chew and I'd prefer to find it enjoyable rather than stressful. But we'll see if I can at least remember to get a few bits listed on eBay this week as that would be a good start!

I've also made myself a list of things/places I need to declutter, ideally before Christmas. I've been watching the Stacey Solomon show "7 Days to Sort Out Your Life" on iPlayer and realised there are quite a few things I hang on to that I don't really need to keep, or just because it's easier to procrastinate and think "I'll do that next month". Baby Boy is 5 months now and a bit of a clear out before he starts crawling (and before Christmas presents flood our house!) would be helpful. I made the list yesterday while he was having a play with a rattle so now it's just a case of following it and actually getting things out the door.

Yesterday Mr VH informed me that he removed a number of unpleasant 8-legged beasties from our home while cleaning downstairs, so this morning I made him an apple and blackberry crumble as a thank you. I was also going to try to make a lemon drizzle cake but didn't have time between crumble and getting a whole roast chicken in the slow cooker, so I might see if I can get one made tomorrow. If not it can be done next weekend instead.

And now I need to shower before Baby Boy has a nap. Have a good week everyone!

Moneyfordreams

Me and DD2 really enjoy Stacey Soloman's show. I certainly haven't decluttered enough

VintageHistorian

There's a season 3 now coming out on BBC and iPlayer @Moneyfordreams! I've seen the first episode and the second is on tonight.

Also Bake Off is back at the end of the month, so that'll be another one to keep me entertained on midweek nights.

Jumping on quickly before I go wake Baby Boy up from his first nap (and get myself dressed and vaguely presentable). Did a money shuffle last night and managed to OP £21.96, so not quite the £25 I was hoping for but still a nice amount. It was made up of £10.49 from Prolific, £6.25 from TCB, £2 from Shopmium, and a £3.22 TT.

I'm having less luck with Prolific this week so I'm only at £3 on there. I'm waiting on £6 from Greenjinn but it took ages to acknowledge my cashout and then the money still hasn't come through, if it hasn't arrived by next week I'll have to contact them to ask where it's disappeared to.

Decluttering has been mostly done with books (still got a few I'm mulling over). I've got a small pile to go to Ziffit but I'm not quite at the minimum required to post off, hence mulling over which others I won't read again. There were a few that they didn't want so they're in the charity shop/WI sale pile. I also sorted out my side of the pyjama drawer (yes me and Mr VH have a whole drawer dedicated to our pyjamas XD) and got rid of most of them. I'm very fussy with my PJs so there's a few leftover bits from joint packs that I've bought because I like the bottoms but not the tops. There's also a few I've held onto because I love them but they're so full of holes they can't be worn any more. So they're split between a clothes bin (or charity shop) pile and a rag bin pile for the next time we go to the tip.

The exception to both these is one book that I bought for my MA and haven't touched since, I've listed that on eBay as it's an academic text so worth a lot more than 99p in a charity shop, and a lovely pair of Cath Kidston PJs that my parents gifted me for Christmas a few years ago. They're still brand new with the tags on and when I checked on eBay I found similar have sold for nearly £50! So I've listed them at a more modest £40. Feeling a bit guilty as they're a lovely gift, but I prefer baggy t-shirt nighties and wide-legged loose cotton bottoms, and this is a matching set with a button-up shirt. Just not my thing, and the money will be better off in my mortgage.

Also did two WI talks and already paid in the cheques so the money has been stashed in my S&S ISA. I've now got 2 more in October and 2 more in November. I'm starting to get a few enquiries for 2024 but as I'm now limiting my travel distance and the new Speakers Book hasn't been finalised and released, I'm having to disappoint quite a few people.

Dinner tonight is bolognese from the freezer, with some spaghetti from the cupboard and garlic bread also from the freezer. Have a good day everyone!